Moving Mountains: Gold Star Stay the Catskills Way

The first Elyssa Friedland book I ever read was The Floating Feldmans, which was a funny family drama set on a cruise ship.  Last Summer at the Golden Hotel is a lot like it, except the cruise ship is a hotel, and the main characters own it.  The Goldmans and the Weingolds have been the proud proprietors of the Golden Hotel for decades.  Nestled in the once-trendy Catskills, or as the locals call them, the Jewish Alps, the Golden Hotel has feted everyone from Joan Rivers to Jerry Seinfeld in its famed theater.  Families have come for generations to bond over brisket and shuffleboard, their happiest moments frozen in time in the hotel's Memory Lane photo gallery.  But time has not been kind to the Golden, and now it's falling apart.  These days, people want organic meals and Wi-Fi, and they're going elsewhere to get it.  Which forces three generations of Goldmans and Weingolds to ask themselves the dreaded question: should they stick it out or sell?  While trying to find the answer, they learn new things about each other -- and themselves.  

Last Summer at the Golden Hotel is fun and nostalgic, harkening back to the days of Dirty Dancing and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, both of which it references.  While reading it, I used the sunflower bookmark I bought at Beyond Van Gogh.  It matched the cover so perfectly that I couldn't stop looking at it. 

As they say, it's the little things.